Messages that Inspire

A Note About Our Events, from Uyen

MESSAGES THAT INSPIRE

Girls and parents who attend our events get a chance to hear wonderful messages from women (and men) who have “been there, done that” and who can take a moment to reflect on how their journey may be an example for others.

You may remember Heather Emerson of IDEO, who delivered a keynote at our March 2013 conference and said:

An innovator is someone who looks at the world through the lens of opportunity. Everything around us is opportunity, and that is what the best innovators do.

Or Judy Estrin, who delivered the opening keynote at our June 2013 conference and advised:

The most important thing is to try – try different things. It’s almost more important to figure out what you don’t like than it is to figure out what you do like.

Or Heidi Roizen, who shared about the 20-40-60 Rule as closing keynote speaker at our June 2013 conference and revealed:

No one’s really thinking that much about you; you have got to be your own advocate. On the flip side, no one’s really thinking that much about you, so don’t worry too much about making mistakes. Those of us who have succeeded, we have done a whole bunch of things, many of which have been failures. If you worry, you won’t try; and if you don’t try, you can’t succeed.

Life is not a competition. The more you share your stories, the more you’ll be surprised at how willing people are to support you. Women are individuals with great talents, great skills and great potential, and individuals need each other.

Dream with wild abandon of the things you want to do in this lifetime, and then have the courage to do them. Remember that the bravest people can also be the most fearful people. It takes great courage for a fearful person to break through that fear. But to grow, our courage must become bigger than our fear. Be brave enough to jump. Be someone who is known for her courage.

During the formative years of middle school thru high school, great mentors should be brought in to expose the girls to the endless possibilities that computer science can bring to their future realms of work.

To further my career at Google, I want to keep improving upon my communication skills. Communicating internally is key to success at Google and having presence and delivery skills sets you apart. This is also a bit more personal but I think will also help my career at Google – I really want to learn to code!

We asked them to speak to girls and parents because it’s never too early to start exploring and hearing stories of being challenged, overcoming challenges, and taking challenges head-on.

Inspiration comes from not just sound-bytes but meeting in person someone whose journey broadens your understanding of the world and leads you to believe you could walk in their path (or pave your very own) one day.

Our speakers speak from the heart because they know one can’t be superficial in front of kids, who can tolerate neither vagueness nor inauthenticity. In a world where every word you say could be hyperlinked and repeated, this has been a tall order for our speakers. Because they care, they answered it; and because they answered, the impact on our participants has been tremendous.

“I WANT TO DO SOMETHING”

At the end of our June conference last year, a teen came up to me and said, “I have been to both of your events, and I want to do something for the next one.”

I was genuinely surprised. I heard that kind of statement from moms immediately following our March event, but not from girls. Some time between March and June, this thought developed in the minds of some of the girls, as well.

At the time, I didn’t know what this teen could do or how to engage her (true confession: I had never organized a conference until then). But I heard her yearning to be a part of something, to do something, and it was a message that I was to hear again in the coming months, as I (initially with tentativeness) set up a Teen Committee and invited girls to share their desires to contribute and make an impact.

Our Teen Committee is now in full force. Every girl is at a different place in terms of her readiness for “the stage,” so to speak, but they all have the desire. I believe that desire comes from having been fed stories that inspired them. I asked myself, “If a girl comes to me who is inspired, how can I fail to take that opportunity to help her spread her wings?”

If I questioned my ability to help a girl, I would be discrediting my own experience as a mother and a woman who has had many tumultuous moments in her own life, where she questioned her very existence and managed to survive.

There’s also this: As a mother of a ten-year-old, I never thought opportunities for me to influence my daughter could potentially run out while she’s still under my roof. Having met many moms of teenagers in the last year, though, I see that, indeed, as girls come into their own, it becomes harder to see which opportunities to choose or when a door is open to her world. Sometimes, even if a door opens, it may not be you who should walk through it. And that’s where it could be valuable to have a community of others – adults and peers – whose presence and input could help one’s daughter spread her wings.

We all have something to give; I truly believe that. It is not our life experiences (or lack thereof) that hold us back from impacting another – it is our mindset. I hope for my own daughter – much as I have always longed for myself – that a community of women and girls (and other caring adults) will always be available to support her to be her best and purposeful self. That is what drives me every day to echo the words “girls innovate” in my thoughts, words and actions.

It is not over-reaching to ask a girl to open her mind, to develop skills now that could serve her purposes down the road. In fact, many of these girls are ready, as shown by the teens who have asked us to help them “do something.”

We are excited to march on together!

– Uyen (founder/organizer), on behalf of our entire team of volunteers and project leaders